Silent Hill: Ashes To Ashes
by Abethe of Zek
Summary: After five years of prison, Joseph Abernathy is ready to start over. Silent Hill, on the other hand, is not done with him just yet. Chapter 4 finally up!
1. Of Blaze and Blood

**Chapter 1: Of Blaze and Blood**

_"There goes another one." _  
  
Joseph found himself anticipating the descent of the next ash from the cigarette of his associate, a burly-looking Marcell Shanks. It kept his mind off of the task at hand... or at least he wanted it to do so. Joseph sat on a nearby crate, which was slowly dampening from an incoming thunderstorm. He continued to watch the embers collide with the wet pavement, they were like tiny contained blazes, capable of burning everyone and everything here to the ground.  
  
Oh how he wished that would happen.  
  
He didnt want to be here, no, not tonight. Joseph Abernathy was about to be a part of a crime - a murder, actually, and he had no choice except to do or die.  
  
"Nice night for revenge, eh Joe?" asked Marcell in a somewhat unnerving tone.  
  
"How would I know?" Joseph glanced up from the ground, where he had currently been analyzing some gray remains of the cigarette, "This isnt my problem. Ive never had a girl to cheat on me like that..or whatever it was that you said she did. Hell, Ive never even had one to call my own." He focused again on the ashes.  
  
Marcell snorted.  
  
"What?" Joseph retorted.  
  
"Youre nervous, arentcha? Scared of what youve gotta do. I can tell, for Gods sake, youre shivering over there." he smirked.  
  
Joseph really was shivering. He had been trying to give Marcell the impression that he was just cold from having to wait outside in the alley beside - he looked up at the sign on the four story complex above him - Clanton Villa. It seemed to him like a nice name for an apartment building. The thought soothed him for a moment. Suddenly, a punch on the back alerted him that it was time. _"God, please forgive me I-"  
  
_"Get up!" Marcell dragged him up and off the crate and to his feet, which wobbled a bit. He motioned him over to the corner, then took a moment to peek out into the sidewalk, about a hundred feet or so from the apartment entrance.  
  
Joseph began to breathe heavily, more so than usual, for it was his nature to become suddenly nervous at the thought of a confrontation. Especially a confrontation that involved the killing of someone he never even met before.  
  
"Bastard... thinks he can take whats mine, does he? Well, Ill show him." Marcell threw his cigarette down. Joseph swore he could hear the thud of it. "And Elaine... why? This must be some kind of misunderstandin my part. Youll be back in my arms soon."  
  
The two large doors of Clanton Villa swung open as what was apparently Elaine and a soon-to-be dead man emerged, laughing and hugging each other.  
  
_"They look so happy."_ Joseph thought to himself. He knew he didnt belong here. He was just a simple man, with what was supposed to be a simple life. He didnt ask for much, just a little bit of happiness and content here and there, a good paying job, friends to drink with; all those little things that every man needed to be successful in life. Now he found himself here, in some dark alleyway, in some city he knew not the name of, with some man he had once looked up to. Everything started to move in slow motion. The couple was moving closer. The footsteps were growing more lively. He wouldve been happier if they could stay that way.  
  
"Ok.. lets GO!" Marcell pushed Joseph and himself out of the dark passage and out into the spotlighted street where they met in front of the astounded couple.  
  
"Marcell?! What the hell are you doing here? Youre not supposed to-" Elaine started.  
But she was cut off by the dull flicker and clinking of Marcells blade that he had suddenly removed from within his black jacket.  
  
He turned to the man, who had just gone pale, and lunged at him.  
  
"JOE, GET HER!" Marcell demanded wildly.  
  
Joseph shook the previous fantasies out of his head and looked around. Elaine was nowhere in sight. It was too dark to see much, anyways. The man screamed. Joseph involuntarily looked over to where Marcell and the man were struggling. There was blood cascading down the sidewalk. There was no time for thinking now; Joseph found himself running towards the two, cursing madly. When he got close enough, he noticed that they were no longer struggling.. one of them wasnt even moving at all.  
  
"Marcell!" Joseph called.  
  
No reply.  
  
He wasnt dumb, Joseph could figure things out quite quickly. Marcell was dead, if not, dying. Too far gone to answer his call, that was for sure. Just then he heard someone shuffling behind him. Flinging a small knife out of his pocket, he tried to turn around to see what was there but ended up stumbling over on the curb.  
  
Then he saw him. The man who was supposed to die for reasons he wasnt sure of, the man he was supposed to kill was hovering over him, his hair thick with blood, like a cloud of remorse.  
  
The man began kicking Joseph. First kicking his head, then down to his stomach. Neither of them were thinking at this point, it was too late. The knife caught a glimpse of the streetlight before sinking into the mans leg. He let out a howl of indescribable pain. Joseph jerked the blade out, then jammed it into his left rib. The man fell over, obviously dead.  
  
Joseph blinked as he felt tears of some sort fill his burning eyes. He didnt know why this happened. He didnt know how it happened. He just knew one thing: he had killed a man. Would he run? Would he stay and explain to the cops? That surely would not do. Once again he was faced with the choice to do or die.  
  
It didnt matter.  
  
He looked down at the pool of blood and rain emptying the street into a rather large drain. A gunshot rang in his ears amongst the once living screams of the two dead men. A pain seethed in his stomach as he let himself collapse beside the man he just murdered.  
  
And so he waited. He didnt know what he was actually waiting for. The police, maybe? A miracle of some kind? Perhaps even death? Death seemed the closest to him now. He almost wanted it. Death would be his miracle.  
  
The rain got harder, his breath got shallow, and his world slowly became engulfed in the flames of darkness. Josephs mind began to wander off again. _"The flames.."_ his brain kept repeating this line over and over, until he couldnt stand it. He imagined that cigarette in all its blazing glory. He was convinced that it finally had set the city on fire.  
  
Something made him turn to look at the man had killed. His eyes were still open, but cold and empty. Blood was dripping from his lips, creating a thin, red river that went down his cheek.  
  
_"I wish I was him. I want this to end."_ he pleaded in his mind. The end never came.  
  
Looking at the man was too much. He turned his head again and stared off into the dreary night sky. It was all too much to handle.  
  
Something made him want to look over to his right side. His eyes met two massive posts and followed them up to where he found a large billboard sign. With his last bit of remaining interest he read it.  
  
_Welcome to Silent Hill: A friendly, cozy resort town!  
  
_"Cozy...?"  
  
The sign and everything else went black.


	2. A New Beginning

A/N: I forgot to mention that I in fact, do NOT own Silent Hill. (Surprise, eh?) Konami does. Sooo...good for them! However, I do own this fic. Oh, and don't sue me, for I am poor. Have fun!

* * *

**Chapter 2: A New Beginning**

---

****

"Joe! Hey wake up!" the little man grunted. "Christ! C'mon man...GET UP!"  
  
"Hrm...Marcell...don't...I don't want to..."  
  
The man threw his hands up at Joseph.  
  
"Ugh, fine." the man sighed as bent over behind his cot, soon to return to Joseph's side with a bucket of what appeared to be ice water. With one glance more, he dumped the sloshing liquid over Joseph's face.  
  
"I'M UP! I'm awake!", Joseph looked over at the man, who wore a sly grin as he watched his mischief at work. "Carl, why the hell did you do THAT?"  
  
Carl shrugged. "You were dreamin' about that night again. I hate it for you, man. Awful, just awful..."  
  
"I was..? Oh, sorry." He scratched his head. Something was troubling him.  
  
Carl laughed then circled the tiny perimeter of the two men's jail cell. He finished his "morning stroll" by stretching his arms and letting out a rather loud yawn.  
  
He was quite slender for his age. Cinnamon brown hair fell over his forehead in thin wisps that nearly covered his deep blue eyes. His build was slim, but rock hard. Six years of prison work and being in the gym kept him in this state. Well, six years is what everyone in Toluca Prison that knows him says. Carl Danes stood there in the middle of his cell, surrounded by three thick cement walls and one made of bars. He was only about 5'7" and looked like he was in his late twenties, at the most.  
  
Rumors about him always led to the same horrible ending: Carl had murdered his father in a fit of jealousy. The stories always varied about the reason why he did so. Some say it was to get back at him for stealing his wife, but most think the tale of Carl Danes goes deeper...much deeper than one would care to go.  
  
"Today's the day!" Carl announced as he tried to tug Joseph out of his creaky old bed.  
  
_"It is, isn't it? I had almost forgotten."_  
  
"Sure is." Joseph wrestled with the unsure thoughts that were swarming in his head. "These five years have been some of the longest..." He smiled at the thought of freedom. That smile grew into a mixture of fear and mangled disgust. _"Freedom never got me anywhere. Just bleeding to death in some damn street."  
_  
"Hey you two, stop yaking."  
  
The prison warden strolled up from out of a shadowy nowhere.  
  
The two turned around with haste, slightly startled by his hoarse voice. "Joseph Abernathy," his voice grinded once more, "I bet you're a happy one. If you have not yet noticed, today's the day we can set you free from that ol' barred hell that you're standing in right now." He glanced over at Carl, "Too bad for you. Tsk tsk."  
  
Carl smirked, acknowledging his remark.  
  
"Y-Yes sir Mr. Barynski, I have noticed that my five years are up. I think it's time I get to go now." Joseph had always been intimidated by authoritative figures...even if it were a greased up warden.  
  
_"The hell you bet I'm happy! You don't have a damned idea how bad it is here."_  
  
"Yeah well...hurry up and get whatever's yours outta here. And tell your friend goodbye. He won't be seeing you for a long while, I hope." He started off down the hall to his office. "I'll be back in five." With a final grunt he turned and marched off back into the hall, each step noted by rhythmic jingling that came from his keys that dangled loosely in his back pocket.  
  
Joseph had never questioned the ways of the prison, though he found it sort of odd that a "dangerous" individual such as Carl Danes was sharing the cell with him. _"The way they act, you'd think they didn't care at all if your cellmate murdered you."_ This idea often led him to the next, which was that maybe he was just as threatening as Carl...but no one really cared what happened to either one.  
  
He looked over at Carl, who was currently watching him in the middle of his ongoing thought process. He couldn't have possibly killed someone, but then again, Joseph thought he couldn't have, either...but he did.  
  
"Carl, why are you here?"  
  
"Killed my old man."  
  
"No, really. Why?"  
  
"I just told you, man. I killed my goddamn father."  
  
Something in that last response told Joseph that Carl was hiding something, but he didn't have the time to bother with it anymore -- he had to get ready.  
  
With a nervous sigh, Joseph proceeded in collecting his belongings from the room he had resided in for the past half-decade. Overall there wasn't much, just a toothbrush and comb. He also retrieved a small stack of short stories, poems, and letters that he had wrote to himself and various others who may or may not have ever existed. Most of these he found well kept under his smelly – and what seemed to be decaying – mattress.  
  
In the corner of his eye he noticed Carl still watching him, only this time he looked slightly annoyed, most likely from the sudden questioning he had just over gone.  
  
The fact that none of the guards had ever really performed an entire search of cellblock 3A truly amused Joseph. It seemed that none of the prison employees had ever put enough thought into the duties of its inhabitants or even themselves. Sure there might be some strict warnings to each prisoner before and after each meal or "relaxation time", but other than that the prisoners acted freely. Perhaps this was because Joseph had somehow been thrown into a jail with a group of murderers, thieves, rapists, and other convicts who were surprisingly well-behaved. Or maybe just that no one really cared what the hell was going on. It was rare to even hear about someone trying to escape from Toluca Prison, or even more so to speak of escape. No one had escaped from the grounds alive in about fifty years, and even that man was said to have died trying to survive in the outskirts of the nearest city.  
  
Joseph took one final inspection of his surroundings. It looked exactly how it was when he had came to it those years ago: dull, barren, and somewhat depressing. The only real difference he could tell was from the thin, shimmering ray of light that poured from the cell's one tiny iron-barred window that was placed in the back of the room. The sight of sunlight cheered him up. He couldn't exactly put his finger on what he was feeling at this moment. Of course he knew how he was _supposed_ to feel: indescribably happy.  
  
He spent the remainder of his wait trying to stir up the right emotion for the situation.  
  
Just then both men heard the familiar jingle of Mr. Barynski's keys. It was time to go.  
  
The old warden unlocked the iron door and with an irritating squeak, it finally stood wide open (an unwise maneuver in such a place). Joseph went over to gather his bag of belongings and met back over to his cellmate for the past five years to say goodbye.  
  
His dark eyes met with Carl's pale blue ones. He didn't know what to say to the man, his cellmate. The only person he really had to talk to. He was more than that. He considered him to be a friend...his only friend. And in this last meeting it was all happening so fast, yet these final moments were moving somewhat slow. He tried his best to find the right words without losing any masculinity but his thoughts were filled with what was going to happen after he was cast into the outside world alone.  
  
"Err...Carl, I'm not very good with words, so," he caught his reflection in Carl's listening eyes, "I just wanted to uh..."  
  
Carl suddenly gave a slight nod, apparently unmoved by the start of what seemed to be a speech. "Just go. That's enough for me," he chuckled, "Dear God you are one odd fellow, Joe Abernathy. Get out of here already, sheesh!"  
  
Joseph, taken aback, returned with a forced grin. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he stepped out of the cell beside Mr. Barynski. "Isn't that a bit, um, not smart to leave it open like that?" he asked the old man as he started to shove the door close, and finish with the turn of a key.  
  
"Nonsense. That boy is smarter than that," he turned away from the door and faced him, "I wouldn't go after him if he did decide to escape, though. He's not THAT smart enough to make it out there on foot. Now come on."  
  
Carl, sitting on his cot, glared madly at the sight of the two men on the other side as they walked out towards the doors of Toluca Prison.

---

The main hall of the vicinity was dim and oddly quiet. Neither of the men spoke as they made their way through. Joseph noticed the old yellow photographs of a large brick building that were framed along the walls of the hallway. One of the captions read, "Toluca Prison – 1865".  
  
_"Wasn't that during the Civil War era...?"_  
  
The building looked completely different than the Toluca he knew. The surrounding area looked a bit off, too.  
  
Before Joseph could make any more guesses of the picture's origin, he noticed he was already outside.  
  
"Nice, huh? Been awhile since you've been outside the fences, I'm sure."  
  
Joseph couldn't believe what he was seeing. Through his sunlight stung eyes he made out the area around him. Of course, most of it was composed of asphalt and cement due to the fact that he was in what seemed to be the parking lot of the jail, but it didn't matter. He finally began to feel that indescribable happiness that he was searching for earlier.  
  
As he was taking in the view, another grunt from Barynski grabbed his attention back to the now impatient warden. "Here are your papers," he shoved the stack into Joseph's hands, "...and some money. Can't let you go without the green. Didn't waste all that time just to let you die, right?"  
  
He laughed for what seemed to be too long.  
  
Before Joseph could utter his shy thank you to the annoying bastard, he cut in again. "Oh and one more thing," he dug into one of his many pant pockets, retrieving a key and a small fold of paper. "Somebody left these for you. A lady. Didn't give me a name. Probably because I didn't feel like asking for one!" he laughed again before regaining his composure, "This here is a map of the nearest town. Great place. Maybe you've been there? Ah well, and this is the key to that car," he pointed a lean finger towards a black Sedan parked a few feet away.  
  
Joseph nearly gaped at the car as the warden forced the key and map into his paperless hand. "You're welcome," added Mr. Barynski half-heartedly.  
  
Now looking down at the car key, Joseph tried to pry into his mind to find out who could have possibly left these goods behind for him. Not only was he astonished, but he was also quite thankful as well to whoever it was that went out of their way to leave these things for him. "Maybe it was the warden," he thought to himself, "No couldn't be. I can't believe he even gave me some cash to get around with. I guess he has to by law...Hmm, family? Eh, they don't even know I exist, and besides, the only two that would even help, my own folks, are dead."  
  
"Boy, I suggest you get into that car and go. Unless you're wantin' to stay here. In that case, I'll be glad to –"  
  
"Oh no, no sir I don't think that's necessary," Joseph answered politely, "Well, goodbye, sir."  
  
Joseph tightened his grip on both his old and new belongings as he made his way up to the suspicious looking car that was now his property. He did a lap around it and decided that it would pass most any other inspection besides his own, which only called for the vehicle to have four wheels that weren't flat, windows, seats, steering wheel, brakes, and all those other complex car parts, ect. After he was done searching for any serious flaws, he made a mental decision to insert the key and start the engine (which to his surprise, actually worked).  
  
A renewed sense of freedom flowed through him as he revved up the car. Once again he considered how he got into this situation. Questions like: "Why did get all this?", "Where do I go now?", and "Isn't there more to getting out of prison than just a walk outside, a few documents, and a handful of money?" swarmed in his head until he finally decided he'd probably find more information if he actually got somewhere in the car.  
  
"Good luck out there!" yelled Mr. Barynski from Toluca's steps. He turned around and faced the door to start back inside. "And Godspeed..."  
  
Joseph didn't hear him.  
  
"This has got to be the weirdest, most unorganized prison in the states," he mumbled over the soft roaring of his new car as he pulled out and drove down the gravel path that lead to the nearest country road. He had no real idea where he was, but that's what the map would be for...or at least he hoped so. The whole idea of getting walked out of jail and being told to get in some car that belonged to only God knows who with a map that would lead him to some place other than where he wanted to be only brought up more questions, so he kept the originals and cleared the rest of his cluttered mind to get set on finding a place to start over...as if it wasn't hard enough already.  
  
Just then he ran into a bump on the small road. The unsuspecting jolt of the car caused the map to slip off of its place on the dashboard and land onto the passenger seat where it unfolded to reveal another map that lay inside it. At the sight of this, Joseph pulled over on the side of the road under an old oak tree.  
  
"Odd..." he grasped the second piece of parchment and began to unfold it. Its edges (or what was left of them) were bent in all directions and in some places looked almost singed. He noticed one fold to be lined with fingerprints...he could tell the prints because they were outlined in what seemed to be blood. He stopped to once again question things. This time it was whether or not he should unfold the paper anymore. His curiosity won this battle, and so he opened the stained map to view it entirely.  
  
Through the bloodstains it read:  
  
_"A Map to Silent Hill: A Friendly, Cozy Resort Town!"_


	3. Thomas Kline

**Chapter 3: Thomas Kline**

---

_"He spoke of the flames? Are you sure of this?" _

"Absolutely. I know what I heard." 

"Then there is a chance that this man is...?" 

_"Yes." _

"Do you think He knows?" 

"Quiet. He's awake..."

---

A siren wailed softly in the distance as Joseph was suddenly shook back to his current reality. He noticed that he had somehow fallen asleep -- or maybe just passed out right there in the front seat. Even stranger, his vehicle was now resting in a ditch along some road that he was definitely unfamiliar with. It didn't occur to Joseph that he had just been dreaming. The conversation still rang clearly in his mind as if he had heard it every single day of his life. The words were so familiar, each voice in the same exact sync that they were when originally spoken.

He knew he had been there with them sometime before, but the sound was all that he could remember. In fact, he didn't even recall there ever being any images to match up with the rest of the scene. Like a radio, he could only let his imagination paint the faces that owned each word.

Joseph tried to focus his eyes, but his newly found headache was blinding. "Damn...where the hell am I?" He glared into the steering wheel. "This doesn't make a goddamn bit of sense at all. Here? Without a scratch? And this..." His eyes caught a fuzzy glimpse of the Silent Hill map.

"I don't want this."

Something about him was different. He no longer wanted to venture out into the world and make a new life for himself, but he instead desired the opposite. He just wanted to drive on and on, far away from wherever he was now, but that was not possible.

There was someone, something...it was calling to him. In the silence of that country road. In the silence of his car. He was being beckoned by a force he could not understand.

The key slid into the ignition. The car purred like an unsettled beast as Joseph had unknowingly decided inside himself to keep going. "Well, I guess as long as I'm moving somewhere..." And with that, he pulled back onto the road and headed off into another stretch of country.

Repetitive slurs of decaying wooden fences greeted Joseph along the way for what seemed like hours. Over the time that he had been cruising by, he began to regain his composure, which of course, wasn't really much of a composed being. The natural nervousness swept back into its place. His headache was easing off, but the sweat on his brow still kept teasing his dry, burning eyes.

After what seemed to be another hour of driving, Joseph swore he had ran across the first car he had seen ever since he first left the prison. Unfortunately, (and not to his surprise) the car was vacant. Tire skids led up to the dusty convertible. He decided to stop and go check it out, and was rewarded with nothing but a tube of red lipstick.

"Figures...I wonder who would've left such a thing here? Ran out of gas, maybe," he had a decent habit of asking himself questions, "Guess I'm not the only one with dumb luck around here."

It would appear to _seem_ that way.

And so Joseph made his way back to his car and was off again, not even bothering to look for passing traffic for there hadn't been any for the past two hours. Upon reaching the next incline of the road, he finally spotted what seemed to be a weathered gas station. It looked like it wasn't vacant, and to his surprise, he noticed another vehicle parked in front of the building. Hoping for some new kind of human interaction, he parked beside it and made his way into the station.

A bell on the convienience store rang as he pushed it open. It seemed homely enough.

"Hello?"

Silence.

"I was kind of looking for a...uhm..." he cleared his throat, "is anyone here?"

The bell sang again as something crashed into the door behind him. Joseph jerked around as he felt the metal handle of the door push into his back and sent staggering to the counter.

A teenager slightly shorter than Joseph stood up in front of him, clenching a brown paper bag that was obviously once filled with several groceries that were now lying on the overly painted floor. "Oh man, I am SO sorry. I was just coming back from the storage outside and you, err I...here, you can get a free tank of gas. Will that work?"

Joseph smiled at the kid. "So this place IS open?" he glanced down at the spilled cans of soda and crushed bags of chips, "Don't worry about it, I don't need any fuel anyways."

"Oh...well then," the boy started as he carried the items back behind his counter, "What can I do for you?"

"I need to know how to get to a city, you know, like some place that I can stay."

The boy rubbed his greasy chin at him, currently fixed on the mess that was sticking to the floor.

"I'm guessing there's not too much around here, right?" Joseph sighed.

"Huh? Oh well, not really. There is one place not too far, but you won't reach it by nightfall," he notioned at a nearby window, "You look bushed. I think you should maybe go get some rest before you go hit the city."

"That's kind of why I wanted to find a place..." Joseph glanced up at the store's abnormally high ceiling, "Oh, you mean you have a place for me to rest?"

"...Right!", the young man grabbed a keyring from his back pocket and led Joseph out to a little shack outside of the store. He opened the door to the two room home and followed Joseph, who looked a bit bewildered about the whole thing. "Like it?" he tried to assure Joseph that the room was harmless, "I usually keep it open for travellers...you're the first one I've gotten in a week or two."

Joseph walked wearily to the door. "How much? Err, just for a few hours, right."

The boy nodded. "Yeah about that...twenty dollars? I'm sorry if that's a bit much but I do need to make a living," he looked away.

"Oh no, that'll be good! I mean, this place looks pretty well off," Joseph handed him a twenty, "You're not here by yourself, are you?"

"Well...about that...my boss hasn't showed up. He's a busy man. My father, that is. Mr. Kline," he held out his hand, "and that would make me Thomas Kline. Nice to meetcha." 

At last, a friendly face.

Before Joseph could even shake the boy's hand or even give him his own name, a car horn blared from out front of the store. 

"Shoot, I gotta tend to these people. Get some rest, alright? I'll give you a wake up call later."

The wooden doorslammed in his faceas Thomas ran back to the store, leaving Joseph to his one room villa with one little cot. He was convinced that he was in good hands for the evening and collapsed onto the mattress.

"Perhaps this won't be hell after all..." 

* * *

A/N: Ahh okay so this may seem like a long chapter, and yes I know, no monsters as of yet. Not THAT pleased with it, but hey I'm building this baby up. Sorry for the long wait between chapters. I'm sort of suffering from schoolage and writer's block. . I'd like to thankEVERYONE for their reviews, 'specially Crimson Alessa and Luckie. Please, mooore reviews and opinions so I can make this thing mucho better! 

Thanks and thanks again.


	4. Surviving the Nightmare

**Chapter 4: Surviving the Nightmare**

---

A clock ticked nonchalantly, echoing in Joseph's mind, projecting its sound like a time-bomb within his brain. He rolled onto his side, trying to unravel his legs from beneath the faded yellow cotton bed sheets. It was odd, he thought, he hadn't moved barely an inch from the moment he had settled in between the mattress and the covers, and yet he found himself tangled from the waist down. He kicked the sheets off of the bed with a grunt. In what seemed like his first real voluntary movement in hours, he stretched an unsteady hand out to the little white alarm clock that rested on the nightstand beside him.

_Tick. Tick. __Tick._

He held the noisy instrument up and over his head. Still resting on his back, he squinted at the clock's face. Tracing a circle along the plastic cover with his finger, he could not help but also notice the time it read: 4:30a.m.

Joseph blinked. He looked again. "Great," he slammed the clock back onto the wooden nightstand with a thud, nearly knocking over a small lamp, "Almost eight hours, definitely no sleep."

Part of him was astounded at this. _What was the problem? Was this not good enough for him? What could possibly go wrong this time? _The young man closed his eyes and tried to at least get a bit of rest, even if it were only his eyes who received any kind of sympathy.

Slowly, Joseph felt himself and the bed beneath him start to fall. It was as if this one moment in his life were in an hourglass, himself lodged in the middle, a single grain of sand lost amongst millions of others. The sturdy old walls of the shack swayed and weaved in and out amongst the wood of the floor. He drifted through the rest of the crowded room, unconscious, falling forever until he could not remember anymore.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

---

A red light engulfed Joseph's "dream", jerking him awake. He lie sprawled out on the floor, his back wedged between one of the far corners of the room. Propping himself up in some kind of unorganized sitting position, he tilted his head back against the wall and breathed heavily. Ice ran through his veins. With a quick glance across the room, he acknowledged the bed that he was once in. It appeared to be untouched.

_"I've never been so cold..."_

Then he heard it. A familiar scream of a man. A scream that could only mean death. It swelled up inside the room until Joseph was quite sure that the entire building would collapse. Maybe even explode. Nearly breathless, he gave himself a boost on a nearby wooden chair and stumbled to the door.

He made an effort to turn the doorknob but was stopped dead in his tracks. There was something messing with his mind, he thought. A wave of doom and despair loomed behind him. Trying not to look and witness what he felt was there, he grasped the knob again, only to feel the same faint waves of death ahead of him as well. He gritted his teeth and flung the door open. The remainder of his nightmare lay on the other side.

A fire. It had engulfed the entire store. The flames spread all around the area, leaving few places untouched, but allowing all to have front row seats to its grand display of its pain and suffering.

Joseph was the guest of honor, it seemed.

The inferno licked at Joseph's face playfully then whipped back to its main source inside the building after it had made another scene of itself by catching onto many low-hanging tree branches. It didn't seem to know how to take his arrival... First the blaze wanted to make a mere mockery with its antics, followed by a cruel warning.

Someone, or perhaps _something_, emerged from behind the side of the burning building. It too was aflame. Groaning an almost human groan, its eyes shimmered gravely as it caught the glow of the fire.

"My god..." Joseph breathed.

The thing screamed, shattering what was left of the tranquility that had once belonged to the wilderness around the two. It appeared to be a man, possibly alive... just barely. His skin (or what was left of it) was charred black, his clothes reduced to ashes.

It tried to speak.

"_We...salvation...have found you..."_

His decaying body twitched and writhed with each word.

"_The flames!"_

A pain like no other drove itself into Joseph's wrists. In pure agony, he let out a fierce cry that not even the raging blaze could mute.

"_THE FLAMES!"_

He was sure that someone must have fired the gun that was being held to his temple. Choking on his words, the defenseless being fell to his knees. He hung his head in misery as he waited for the final shrieking from the corpse.

A dry but familiar voice scraped the air. "Go," it said.

Joseph opened his eyes. In front of him lay burned remains. They were charred beyond recognition. He fell backwards in awe. He tried to ask what the hell had just happened, but "hell" was the only word that he could make out. Trying to find his balance, Joseph pushed himself up off of the ground, scrambling towards the woods.

The smell of burning flesh hung in the air as he fled through the tangled forest. A few times he tripped, suffering some minor scratches and bruises. They were nothing compared to what he had just endured only moments ago. The more Joseph ran, the more pain he felt leave his body. Though the pain's grip had loosened, the flames had left their mark. Joseph had never felt more overheated in his life. He had to keep running from whatever it was that was out to murder him, but each step brought sickness and fatigue.

Grasping his stomach, he cried as if someone had struck a match inside of his body and somehow been able to keep it lit. The fever inside of him wouldn't go away like the other new pain had. He couldn't understand why this was going on, why he couldn't just have a normal life where just one thing could work out perfectly. He glared at a clearing a few hundred feet away, just able to make the path out. With a refined burst of strength he ran in that direction. Twigs sliced his arms and face. He no longer felt it.

His brain boiled with uneasiness as he approached the asphalt clearing. It was a road...a real road. People drove on this road, he remembered.

"Real human beings," Joseph grunted, "they have to be here somewhere."

A bitter fog swept over the nightmare that surrounded him. There was no proof of night or day.

"They just have to." 

* * *

A/N: Look, look! Chapter 4! Ahh...too long of a wait, yes I know. Very sorry, but I promise quicker updates now. Mmmhmm, I sure do! Thanks for all the reviews, yes special thanks to each and every one of you. 

(Extra thanks to Laura, who got me off my arse and writing again...though I was gonna do it anyways! XD Sheesh.) 

Lemme know whatcha think!   



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